I've order all my parts for a new pc and most of them have already arrived. I started putting what I could together before the ram and graphics card show up and realized that the aftermarket cooler I ordered won't work with the motherboard I picked.

The case is a Node 304 which will fit a full sized psu, graphics card and aftermarket cooler.The problem is that the heatsink I ordered wont fit on the motherboard I picked (evga stinger).I ordered the Hyper 212 which needs backplate installed to lock properly. The odd shaped backplate sits on top of some of the stingers components and from what I can tell would destroy the motherboard trying to put it on.

I can't seem to find any information on this motherboard about what aftermarket heatsinks I can use.

The CPU cooler is low profile and just fits nicely fit in the Lian Li PC-Q16 Case I used for the build. A plus I did like was how the fan could be moved up, down, left or right, which made life a lot easier when connecting the 4pin power connector to the motherboard.

Im hoping to build a second ITX system right his time. When I built one, it was when ITX was getting big, but the best case I could find with a good layout was a nice termaltake, but this case you have looks cleaner and compact. The second box will be for media serving purposes

The Node 304 doesn't have the psu above above the motherboard, so I can fit a full sized cpu cooler.
But I need one that will work with the evga stinger without wrecking everything. whats the best cooler without a backplate? or is there a good cooler I can get with a backplate that will work on mitx boards?

Its going to be easier to change motherboard because you really can't use a CPU cooler with a backplate for it.Either that or go with Water / Liquid Cooling kit unless you can find a CPU fan cooler without needing a backplate.

Im hoping to build a second ITX system right his time. When I built one, it was when ITX was getting big, but the best case I could find with a good layout was a nice termaltake, but this case you have looks cleaner and compact. The second box will be for media serving purposes

I use it as a VMware ESXI Home Server Lab, at the moment its running a Windows Sever 2012 VM, with a couple of client VM's joined to the domain for testing purposes. I'm using it to learn more about Windows Server and active directory, with the eventual plan been to study for some Microsoft certifications.

The basic idea is just to have something i can boot various VM's for testing / learning and not have to pull old PC's out, dualboot and make a mess all the time. I can tinker to my hearts content from my main PC.

VMware ESXI boots from an internal USB stick and the 1TB drive is used as the data store for the VM's.

As the motherboard has two gigabit Ethernet ports i might run a VM thats dedicated to been my router in the future. Once my upload speed gets increased later this year i might host a game server on there too. Got many plans for it at present anyway

Unless you need the CPU power to transcode media I would have a look at the HP ProLiant Micro Server, you can get 5x 3.5" hard drives in there. It makes a great little nas. I have one that has 10TB of space at the moment. It servers all our media to various low power XBMC devices around the house, with a cheap copy of Windows Home Server 2011 it also makes a great machine to backup other PC's in the house.